


Walk of Life

by macrocosmica



Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Moving On, Post-Canon, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 21:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17050784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macrocosmica/pseuds/macrocosmica
Summary: And after all the violence and double talk, there's just a song in all the trouble and the strife.In 1987, Stan tries to sort out living in this world. It's not as easy as it sounds.





	Walk of Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shoemaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoemaster/gifts).



There used to be another route across America, Stan tells Henry more than once, named kind of the same thing: kind of like I-66. They call it Historic Route 66 now. Now, admittedly this was a little before Stan's time too and he fudges the dates a little: there's nothing less interesting to a kid than a story from a grown-up who's too old to be relevant and not old enough to be antique, which is, unfortunately, exactly what Stan Beeman is. You try to tell a story to a teenager these days and if you never parachuted out of an Operation Overlord plane, they tune right out. But I-66 has always been eerie to him, and he can't help but comment.

"Yeah," says Henry after the third, or 2.5th, comment: "It's in _The Grapes of Wrath_ , right?"

Stan arches his eyebrows, by reflex. Henry puts in a little unhappily: "I mean, I've been to _some_ high school."

"I'm sorry. I know. I just never know what somebody's going to realistically pay attention to." The dotted dividing line, which has been zipping by so freshly for about thirty minutes, suddenly fades into a broken, yellowish suggestion: hitting another jurisdiction, Stan guesses, hitting a break in infrastructure. It's easy to imagine the States a united landscape when you spend most of your time in one part of it. When you drive through it, you see the fragments. "You learn a lot of stuff in high school. Nobody's going to pay attention to all of it."

Henry leans back against his seat, on his pillowed arms. This can't be comfortable. Stan thinks he learned it from a movie. He tilts his head a little, to look at Stan; the motion's perceptible through the corner of Stan's vision.

"You don't have to say that," Henry says. "I know it isn't true. I mean. You pay attention to everything, right? That's kind of what you do."

The Virginia sky--the sky over Virginia, Stan supposes--is the kind of blue that pops out. It puts the horizon and the fading paint to shame. The sun pours right through it. Miserable things are hard to remember under this kind of lighting--the torn-open wound persists, but it's difficult to recall what made it.

Stan has been interviewing people for decades. No one is in the business of memory like they are at the Bureau. He knows people remember things in the same shade they're feeling when they're telling the story.

"No one can pay attention to everything," says Stan, touched with cheer in his voice to balance the mood; "Right now I'm paying attention to the road, in fact, which tends to be a good idea. I wasn't that interested in Steinbeck when I was your age. That was when everyone was kicking up a storm over _The Catcher in the Rye_ and _Lolita_ , anyway. I'm not going to give you a test."

"But you recognized it."

Stan's eyes flick to him for half a second, then back to the road as promised. "What's that?"

"Route 66 in _The Grapes of Wrath_ ," says Henry. "You remembered. See, you do pay attention."

Stan smiles, or the smile comes over him by itself. Henry's bright and smiling back. "Well," says Stan, "I am in the FBI."

It's not so bad, honestly. They're only at the end of Virginia, but it really feels, almost, like it isn't so bad. And there's nobody here to say any different.

* * *

You can tell how badly you've fucked up by how easy it is to take time off work. It's hard to say for other professions (attorneys seem to have leg shackles running to their office chairs, or maybe they just like to whine) but if you're doing great in the field, people want you to stay in the field, and these things never come to a convenient halt in time for Christmas and school plays. On the other hand, when something's really wrong, people suddenly start wanting you to smell the roses. It's not all malicious or insincere. In a place like the Bureau, people really do worry. But also, they need time to talk about you with each other.

The other way you can tell is if they talk to your partner first.

Dennis had the grace not to take Stan aside at the office. He knocked on his door instead, at a time when Renee's car wasn't in the driveway. It was never like Dennis not to call ahead, but then again, Stan supposed if he'd called ahead Stan would have claimed he was going out to dinner with Renee, so it's just as well. That was the trouble with two people who could predict each other's movements, who were in the business of predicting movements. It wasn't that Dennis was stalking him. It was just that the standard, FBI level of awareness of your partner amounted to something that most people would consider invasive. That was just the frequency Dennis was tuned to, and so was Stan, about their entire lives.

That wasn't true. That wasn't true.

"Dennis--hi," said Stan when he opened the door, as if this was a surprise ( _wasn't that what people were always doing? Feigning surprise? Feigning ignorance? How much of the human day was gesture? Wasn't society glued together by people fucking pretending?_ ). "I--uh--" _Is everything okay?_ and _what can I do for you?_ were a preposterous bridge too far. "--Would you, do you want to come in?"

The audits were over, so this was basically a social call. _Basically_ , because Stan could now count the number of things in his life he could assuredly consider _a social call_ on the amputated stump of a hand.

Dennis looked sorrowful; the sorrow went deep into his eyes, which Stan stared into. It wasn't a novel sight. There was a lot of sorrow to go around this place.

His cologne was different. If he'd brought his wife for dinner, Stan would've made a joke to her about that being a sign of an affair. Except that would've been odd. And you never knew. You never knew, did you.

"Stan," Dennis said once he shouldered his coat off; "How are you holding up? How are you really holding up?"

Where did you find the truthful answer to a question like that? Would you recognize it if you saw it lying on the ground? "Dennis--" Stan ducked his head, like this would somehow fit him into something; "You know, I--"

Dennis never did get anything out of him that time, although he did succeed in piloting Stan into one of his own chairs and making coffee for him. He paced while he brewed and talked: that was how you could tell Bureau Dennis from, well, Dennis. Bureau Dennis was all laconic and shoulders. He wasn't tall, so he got mileage out of his eyebrows. Dennis tended to pace the same box-shaped pattern, like a waltz. It was kind of distracting. These were the items:

 _I talked to Renee, she says Henry's not doing well. You sure that school's the best place for Henry right now?_ Knife one, knife two. "He wants to finish the semester, Dennis. He wants his life to feel normal right now. God, I'm worried too--but you know how a kid is, a broken high school year? That's his life."

_What about you? We going to do this, Stan?_

Head bowed in his chair, thinking about Renee--an evening class? Spanish for adult learners, to grow her employable skillset? "No," said Stan, with his hands in his hair; "no, no. No, we aren't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Dennis. I just don't know what to say here. I don't know what to tell you. I'm staying on top of the audit, and the paperwork for Henry. I'm just here."

 _Are you?_ Not something Dennis actually said here. Just kind of ringing through the angle of his head, the sad way he looked at him. So Stan could practically hear it. Except, the way he could practically hear it, you could almost think Dennis sounded like Philip.

Philip's voice is on its own cassette somewhere within him. If you could put a voice on a wanted poster, Stan thinks he could have brought him back in. _Are you, Stan? Are you?_


End file.
